Preston in the Domesday Book (1086)

The 1086 Domesday survey records the settlement of Preston, entered under the hundred of Holderness [Middle Hundred] in Yorkshire. The survey assessed Preston at 10 carucates of taxable land.

At the time of the survey, Preston supported a recorded population of 5 villagers, 7 smallholders, 13 slaves, working 10 ploughs between them.

The survey records Preston’s value at 10 shillings in 1086. No pre-Conquest figure survives – not unusual in the North, where records were disrupted by the Harrying and by the patchy coverage of the survey.

Resources Recorded at Preston (1086)

• Mills: 3 mills (valued at 1.57 shillings)
• Meadow: 12 acres
• Woodland: 1 * 0.5 leagues

Other Settlements in Holderness [Middle Hundred]

• Aldbrough
• Benningholme [Hall]
• Bewick [Hall]
• Bilton
• Burton [Constable]
• Burton [Pidsea]
• Conis[ton]
• Danthorpe
• Dowthorpe [Hall]
• Drypool
• Ellerby
• Elstronwick
• Eske
• Etherdwick

The Meaning of the Name

The name Preston is of Anglo-Saxon origin. Its final element derives from the Old English word tūn, a farmstead or village. The first element is most likely a personal name or an early descriptive term, now difficult to recover with certainty. Taken together the name probably meant something close to ‘a farmstead’.

Remarkably, the name has changed little since 1086, when the Domesday scribes wrote it as Preston.

Listed Buildings Near Preston

Historic England records 6 listed buildings within about a mile of Preston. Listing protects structures of special architectural or historic interest, graded I (exceptional), II* (particularly important) and II.

Grade I

• Church of All Saints - 0.16 km

Grade II

• Abbey House Farmhouse - 0.22 km
• Field House Farm House - 1.13 km
• Base of Cross Shaft in Garden of Birkholme, About 5 Yds From South-east Corner of House - 1.16 km
• Stone Tracery and Voussoirs of A Former Church Window in Garden of Birkholme, About 60Yds South of House - 1.22 km
• Livers Farmhouse - 1.27 km

Preston Today

Today Preston lies within the administrative area of East Riding of Yorkshire, and the settlement recorded a population of 3,364 at the 2021 census. Nine and a half centuries separate that figure from the small rural community the Domesday survey recorded here in 1086.

Read more about modern Preston on Wikipedia .

Nearby Domesday Settlements

Other places recorded in the 1086 survey within a few miles:

• Newton Garth - 3.0 km S
• Nuthill - 3.2 km E
• Wyton - 3.2 km N
• Bilton - 3.6 km NW
• Marfleet - 4.1 km W
• South Skirlaugh - 4.1 km W